What always defeats me is when the nursing homes (note nursing not care homes) call us to patients who are dying. I don't miind when they've had some kind of incident unrelated to their admission to the nursing home which requires our assistance, but when they call us because they're passing away as a part of the natural progression of their chronic condition it utterly defeats me. We arrive. There's no current DNR order so we are compelled, against all our instincts to assault them with all our medical skills can throw at them and remove any last vestiges of hope they had of a dignified death. Now I may be incredibly stupid, but don't people go into a nursing home so they CAN die in a dignified manner?